Benghazigate

After weeks of posturing, the Democrats have done the sensible thing and agreed to participate in the select committee to investigate Benghazi. Today, Nancy Pelosi named her five allotted members. They are: Elijah Cummings (Maryland) Tammy Duckworth (Illinois) Linda Sánchez (California) Adam Schiff (California) Adam Smith (Washington) Cummings gained invaluable experience carrying water for the administration during hearings by the House Oversight Committee (of which he is the ranking member) »

…for the media about Benghazi (video below). Working as a prosecutor, he learned how to ask questions. In his capacity as the chairman of the House Select Committee, he may get some answers. RealClearPolitics has posted the video along with this transcript: We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act in Benghazi, and make no mistake, justice will be done.” That »

The case against a Select Committee investigation of Benghazi took a hit when former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell agreed that the investigation is a good idea. Panetta was Defense Secretary at the time of the Benghazi attack; Morell was Deputy CIA Director at that time. Speaking at a press conference, Panetta said there needs to be an investigation to lay out the »

Per Michael Ramirez. Click to enlarge: Perhaps Trey Gowdy’s committee will finally be able to penetrate the layers of obfuscation that have prevented the truth about Benghazi from coming out, but I doubt it. So far, stonewalling has served the Obama administration well, and I expect it to continue. »

Now that Benghazigate is back on the front burner and Obama’s “the video is to blame” narrative has been even more thoroughly discredited, it’s time to grant clemency to Nakoula Nakoula, the guy who produced the video in question. After all, the White House plans to grant clemency to hundreds, or more likely thousands, of drug pushers. Why not do the same for the Benghazi fall guy? There are distinctions, »

Timothy Geithner has written a memoir. It’s not a book I intend to read, and I’m sure I speak for all but an incredibly small number of Americans in that regard. Some of the reported excerpts are interesting, though. This one caught my eye: I remember during one Roosevelt Room prep session before I appeared on the Sunday shows, I objected when Dan Pfeiffer wanted me to say Social Security »

On Benghazi, Eleanor Clift, a reliable shill for the Democratic Party, has come up with the most mind-numbingly stupid talking point yet: Ambassador Stevens wasn’t murdered because he died of smoke inhalation! One wonders: are the Democrats seriously going to try to sell that theory in response to the upcoming hearings? I doubt it. But Clift’s moonbattery raises a point that the Democrats would much rather forget: we still don’t »

Speaker Boehner named the six additional Republican members of the select Benghazigate committee yesterday. Trey Gowdy will be joined by Susan Brooks (Ind.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Mike Pompeo (Kan.), Martha Roby (Ala.), Peter Roskam (Ill.), and Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.). Jordan, who has a law degree, serves with Gowdy on the House Oversight Committee. He has been a pretty effective questioner when I’ve seen him in action. Pompeo is a Harvard »

Charles Krauthammer argues that the upcoming Benghazi hearings “are a big political risk to Republicans,” but should go forward anyway because “the country deserves the truth.” Krauthammer worries that the hearings could distract voters from major issues like Obamacare, the economy, and chronic unemployment. He also recalls that the Clinton impeachment proceedings in 1998 backfired politically. The Republicans actually lost a few House seats in the election that year, even »

Today Congressman Tom Cotton spoke, along with other House members, on the formation of the select committee on Benghazi. With barely controlled indignation, he ripped the Democrats’ “fake outrage” over the Benghazi investigation. Recalling the treacherous conduct of many Democrats during the Iraq war, he asked, Where was the outrage then? Cotton harkened back to the lessons he learned in the Army, noting that on the night of September 11, »

Politico reports that Speaker Boehner has decided on the partisan split of the Select Committee on Benghazi. It will be 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats. That’s a fair split given the Republicans’ majority status in the House. As Politico points out, there are very few House committees that are evenly split. The Ethics Committee is one. Nonetheless, Nancy Pelosi had demanded an even split of 6-6. She claimed that with »

Nancy Pelosi issued a statement this morning on the soon-to-be-formed House Select Committee to investigate Benghazi. Byron York comments: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is complaining that the new select committee on Benghazi will have more Republican members than Democrats. “If this review is to be fair, it must be truly bipartisan,” Pelosi said in a just-released statement. “The panel should be equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, as is »

Speaker Boehner has appointed Rep. Trey Gowdy to chair the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Gowdy is an experienced prosecutor who has consistently impressed me (and, obviously, Boehner) during hearings before the Oversight Committee on Benghazi and the IRS. Gowdy breaks the mold for chairman of a big ticket investigative committee. The typical chairman is a stern but somewhat subdued father figure — think Sen. Inouye of Iran Contra fame »

This morning on Fox News Sunday, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff suggested that his party will boycott the House’s proposed select committee on Benghazi: Establishing a select committee to investigate the State Department’s handling of the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya is a “colossal waste of time,” according to Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.). “We’ve had four bipartisan investigations already,” Schiff said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding »

How will the Democratic Party press try to defend the Obama administration over Benghazi? It won’t: it will ignore the story and hope it goes away. To the extent that liberals comment on Benghazi, it will be to mock conservatives for being concerned about it, without ever explaining what the scandal is all about. Here are two examples. Steve Sack has been the editorial cartoonist at the Minneapolis Star Tribune »

In his weekly installment of pictures this morning, Steve alludes to the interview of former NSC spokesman Tommmy Vietor by Bret Baier on Fox News Special Report on Thursday. The video below captures the interview’s most memorable moment. Vietor addressed Baier as “dude” and said he could hardly remember how he helped change the Benghazi talking points because it was “like two years ago.” Try as we might, we won’t »

Speaker Boehner announced today that he will ask the House to vote to create a new select committee to investigate the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. Here is Boehner’s announcement: Americans learned this week that the Obama Administration is so intent on obstructing the truth about Benghazi that it is even willing to defy subpoenas issued by the standing committees of the People’s House. These revelations compel the »